


(Those) that eat the earth

by OrdinaryRealities



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Friendship to family, Gen, M/M, Major Character Injury, Not very angsty, friendship fic, injury before the start of the story, next year, retirement due to injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-12 23:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18456398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrdinaryRealities/pseuds/OrdinaryRealities
Summary: Viktor is injured and sidelined during nationals the year after his comeback. Yuri Plisetsky gives him an unexpected gift that pushes them into friendship. (Definitely NOT vikturio)





	1. Not a pity present

**Author's Note:**

> Title adapted from "Mekong I" by Hoa Nguyen.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

The door swung shut and Viktor turned to Yuuri. “What did I do?”

The door slammed back into the wall before Yuuri could respond. Viktor leaned back to let his eyes focus on the object dangling in his face. 

“What..?”

“It’s a birthday present. Dummy.”

Viktor blinked again at the cascade of ribbons falling from the square package. 

Yurio nodded as if he were relieved at Viktor’s lack of reaction – as if it represented the most tolerable reaction Viktor could have offered – and set it aside at the foot of the sofa. He stood still another moment and then disappeared. For one static moment, Viktor believed he had simply gone up in smoke. Then the door clicked shut. 

Yuuri walked over, leaning down to drop a kiss on Viktor’s forehead as he passed. He picked up the gift and offered it to Viktor, questioning. 

Viktor had to stop and clear his throat before he could respond. “Thanks.”

He ran a hand up the side of it slowly and admitted, “We’ve never done gifts before. Me and Yurio. I don’t,” he took a breath. “I blame you.”

 

If Viktor hadn’t known Yurio so long, he might have assumed it was a pity present. It would make sense. It certainly wouldn’t be the first he had received. Yurio had grown up, but he was no better at insincerity than he had ever been. (This would be easier if he could write it off as pity.) It was, Viktor concluded grimly, just like Yurio after all.

 

“We’re both too good at drawing lines to keep people out.”

Yuuri settled a hand on his shoulder. “Really? He gave me pirozhki last year. We barely knew each other yet.”

Viktor craned his neck to see Yuuri’s face. Mila had a hashtag on Instagram of “strange faces” Viktor made at his husband. He felt certain this would have made the cut. “We were in Hasetsu for your birthday. We practiced the duet exhibition and went out for ramen.” 

Yuuri’s face was fond. “The week before. At Rostelecom, Viktor.” 

To avoid answering, Viktor began picking at the tape. He realized what an absurd misstep that had been when the photo album fell open in his hands. 

 

The inside cover held a note: We’ve had our differences. You know I think you’re an idiot –

(Viktor snorted, raising a hand to dab away a loose tear,)

But I’m not blind. I filled the first two pages to remind you that you’re worth something whether or not you’re a gold medalist. The rest of it is for you to fill. (I didn’t get any photos from Katsudon because he’s the only one I trust you to ask for help yourself.)

 

Yurio hadn’t signed it. Viktor barely noticed Yuuri’s fingertips under his chin, but obediently lifted his head for Yuuri, who kissed first one eyelid and then the other. 

“Do I need to go after him?” Viktor wasn’t sure why the note hit him all over again as he realized that Yurio had written it in Russian (what else would make sense? 

But Yuuri didn’t read Russian well yet, although his spoken Russian was improving, and this gesture to secrecy erased Viktor’s last tendril of doubt that had whispered Yurio might mean it as some public way to be the bigger man). Another tear dripped down his cheek as he shook his head.

“No, it’s… Good tears.” Another one followed. 

“Is there anything that would be helpful, love?” Yuuri leaned in and kissed Viktor’s forehead.

Rather than fight to respond past the growing lump in his throat, Viktor slipped an arm behind Yuuri and pulled him in, tilting to rest his head against the side of Yuuri’s hip. They waited out his tears together.

 

When his vision cleared, Viktor sat back up and studied the first page of pictures Yurio had picked. There was an old photo of Viktor and Mila and Georgi out for ice cream after Mila’s first breakup. A pair from when Lilia took Viktor and his makeup application in hand “Before Georgi gets to you.” Someone – it must have been Yakov – had caught them facing one another, the same look of concentration on both of their faces and mascara in hand. The second photo, underneath, (Viktor had no idea who could have taken this one) captured Yakov with his face painted by Viktor’s inexpert hand, Viktor’s mouth dropped open, mid-joyous laugh, and Lilia’s stern façade cracked with an uneven smile.

There was one of Viktor with an adolescent Makkachin, both on all fours and Makka mid-jump, and tucked away at the bottom of the page, a picture of him and Yurio crossing the street. Yurio must have been new to St. Petersburg, small and slight and willing to allow Viktor to hold his hand in between sidewalks. (Viktor had a sneaking suspicion that Yurio had felt guilty when he eventually stopped the practice, worrying that the older boy might get hit without his guidance.) 

Viktor started to close the album before remembering that Yurio had said two pages. He flipped to the second page, curious what else Yurio could have found and discovered pictures Yurio must have begged from Chris. Viktor and Chris in Boston, the imminent competition forgotten as they posed with a statue of ducklings on Boston Common. Viktor and Chris posing with milkshakes, lips pursed absurdly around their straws. Viktor and Chris, Viktor no more than twenty and before their rivalry had heated up (before Viktor had begun to win every gold medal in sight) trying on dresses together in a montage that flowed down the page. 

The facing page (Viktor and Yurio clearly had different ideas about what constituted a page) held photographs from Cup of China the year before, Viktor drunk and sprawled across Yuuri’s lap. Yuuri was looking down at him tenderly, one hand on his own cheek as if to hide his wonder. Yuuri’s voice sounded above him. 

“That’s not one of Phichit’s. I wonder who took it.” His finger tapped next to the photograph. There were photographs from their exhibition duet and one of a quiet moment from their wedding, the two of them leaning against one another as they watched someone off-camera fondly. There was a photograph of Hiroko teaching Viktor to chop vegetables properly and one of the triplets chasing Viktor around the rink. Mari leaning an elbow on Viktor’s shoulder while he and Toshiya discussed something, waving their hands.

“We should do something for Yurio.” Viktor flipped his hair across his face and shut the album gently. “Something he can’t mistake for teasing.” Viktor kept his eyes off of his husband’s face, unwilling to see the other man’s reaction, and flipped back his blanket, easing his legs off the sofa. “Let’s go support him in the free skate.” 

Yuuri stilled where he had been reaching to hand Viktor his crutches. “Alright.” Yuuri slipped back into motion. “If that’s what you want.”

Viktor felt his throat swell with love for this man. “It is,” he insisted and, blinking, decided he meant it.


	2. Yuri Plisetsky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor knew from the first time they met that Yuri Plisetsky was arrogant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for giving this a try guys! I'm doing my best to figure out what a fair and balanced look at Yuri and Viktor's friendship looks like. I literally wrote most of this story in a weekend, so there may be some inconsistencies/typos/crap like that. If you see anything egregious, let me know. Otherwise I'll re-read and fix it eventually. 
> 
> I'm trying really hard to be fair to Viktor here. If I have him do something that you see as wildly out of character, let me know. I can't promise that I'll agree with you, but I will at least think about it. (I know he cried a lot last chapter, but if he's 29-ish and injured enough to sit out the season (If he's bad enough off that YURI decides he needs an intervention) I think he's going to be pretty depressed, even with the fact that Yuuri has been letting him practice being more than just Viktor Nikiforov tm for a year and a half now.)
> 
> Because I have this pretty much finished, I am currently planning to post the final two chapters tomorrow. We'll see how that works.

Viktor knew from the first time they met that Yuri Plisetsky was arrogant.

He had scraped to a stop by the gate and a small blond whirlwind met him there, green eyes snapping. “I’m going to beat you. Just you wait.” Viktor had swept his competitions for the first of what would be five years running. No one knew yet that he would become the Viktor Nikiforov yet, but Yakov hoped. 

Viktor had blinked down at the boy and tossed his head, hiding his vague annoyance behind his hair and an airy laugh. “Well, I’ll do my best to stay relevant until you’re ready.” He had patted the boy on the head and floated out the gate and away, tuning out Yakov’s growl and ignoring the boy altogether. So many years later, Viktor couldn’t even remember what Yurio’s response had been.

 

They never quite figured out how to get along without cutting each other. Too many sharp edges on the pair of them. Looking back, Viktor wasn’t sure how he had escaped with his hand intact; Yurio had always been the sort of cat to attack. He’d bumped up his antagonizing the very next time they had met, waiting until Yakov turned his back to berate Mila for something and throwing himself into the back-breaking spin Viktor had been fighting to bend into all morning. Yurio had lifted himself out of it effortlessly and smiled meaningfully at Viktor before skating back to his group. As far as Viktor could tell, Yurio had taken no notice of any of his fellow novices that summer, too busy upping the stakes in a competition between him and Viktor that should have been one way. Viktor was ashamed to admit that it took the kid no time at all to goad him into retaliating. By fall he had offered, for the first time in his life, to serve as an example when Yakov was teaching new moves to his rinkmates. The inconvenience was more than worth it when he could catch Yurio’s eye before demonstrating an effortless double loop as the boy struggled to keep his feet under him in the same jump. 

 

Even once they began attending competitions together, nominally on the same team, Viktor found it hard to like Yurio. He was demanding and started fights. (Viktor still had no idea what possessed the boy to turn his head as they left the hotel one day and spit on the ground in front of that Canadian boy. It was only the power of Yakov’s lungs that had saved the two boys from brawling right there in front of the cameras, for the ISU and all the world to see. Viktor would never admit to the twin thoughts that had twisted his stomach that day, the one hoping that the larger boy would knock Yurio down to size and the other terrified for his dandelion wisp of a rinkmate. Both impulses were too embarrassing.) Even when Viktor saw himself in Yurio, in those moments when he had to force himself to excuse Yurio’s flaws as he would his own, it was always his own pettiest parts. 

 

Viktor was an only child or he might have recognized the feeling as its own sort of love, long before the day he challenged Yurio to a race around the rink, one day when the boy was thirteen and Yakov was out. When the younger boy slipped and went down, then scrambled up again with his face white and tried to continue the race, Viktor might have recognized the actions of a stubborn younger sibling. In the hospital as they wrapped the boy’s wrist (a simple sprain, rest it for a few days, Viktor never understood why Yuri never told Yakov) Viktor would have recognized the flood of relief as more than just an absence of guilt.

 

Yuri sometimes felt like he had fire running through his veins where blood should be. His words couldn’t keep up. 

He had been in St. Petersburg for six hours the first time he met Viktor. Nervous about his move, a gaping opening in his chest where he had ripped his heart open to leave his grandfather behind (this was the only way he could get good enough; someone would need to support the old man in a few years, and at ten Yuri had already accepted that it wouldn’t be his mother (the upswing of interest in men’s figure skating, Viktor Nikiforov’s face on every newspaper in Moscow and Yuri’s own flexibility and talent seemed like an unbelievable boon) but who would pick up socks when they fell out of the bundle of laundry so his grandpa wouldn’t have to bend down, now that Yuri was out of town?) Yuri had pushed his worries aside as best he could and tried to be mature, as his grandfather had told him he was going to have to be. Living alone, Yuri would have to be an adult now. 

He met Viktor’s eye as the other man stepped off the ice and tried for nonchalance. (It was a lost cause. It took him years to learn how to pretend he wasn’t wearing his heart on his sleeve.) “I’m going to beat you. Someday.”

Viktor, as if transplanted straight from the TV screen to materialize here in from of Yuri had laughed, tossing his head the way he did when reporters grew pushy about his surprises. “I’ll try to slow down and wait.” As if the words weren’t bad enough, (even after all this time, Yuri’s cheeks reddened in his remembered ire and shame) Viktor had ruffled a hand through Yuri’s hair as if he were five instead of ten.

 

Yuri was hungry for validation. If Viktor refused to treat him like an adult, he could at least drag Viktor down to his level. It began almost by accident, an impulsive goading spin to remind Viktor how much younger and more flexible Yuri was. The fact that it undeniably worked had gone to Yuri’s head and he had set out to map for himself every place a barb would slip under Viktor’s skin. When Viktor gritted his teeth and demonstrated a double toe loop for Yuri for the fifteenth time, Yuri straightened his back as he climbed back up on his skates and reminded himself that this was evidence of Viktor Nikiforov taking him seriously. Hatred and triumph warring in him as he picked up speed to slam into the ice again.

 

It came as a shock when, behind the scenes at a juniors competition, the Canadian bully who’d been jeering at Yuri since their first ice time sneered, “But then, my brother leads the nation in goals for his ice hockey team. How does Nikiforov compare to that?”

Yuri had been spitting mad since the first comment on his size, but this was war. “Viktor Nikiforov leads the world. I think that’s a little bit more difficult than just America.” He paused deliberately just inside the door. “No, wait. It’s just Canada isn’t it?” and swept out, pretending not to hear Leroy’s hiss that Nikiforov was a has-been who would never duplicate his successes this year. Viktor didn’t appear to appreciate Yuri defending his honor by spitting at the other boy as they left the hotel lobby for the final time, perhaps because he’d missed. It was a disappointment when Yakov stopped them before anyone escalated the situation to a brawl. 

 

At thirteen, when Yuri injured himself at the rink for the first time (“I wasn’t even on the ice, Grandpa, I promise. I would never horse around on the ice,”) and Viktor seemed to expect Yuri to tattle on him, the younger boy did his best to fold himself away where Viktor couldn’t see, somewhere that showed only porcupine spikes and clean edges.

 

Yuri Plisetsky was desperate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not actually sure of my math here. Either Yuri moved to St Petersburg the summer before the first year of Viktor's five gold streak or the summer after. For the purposes of this fic we're going to say it was after. 
> 
> I love JJ. I don't mean this to bash JJ. In the most loving way possible, however, I have to tell you that if JJ at 19 can't tell the difference between being friendly and making Yuri feel like he's being bullied, he definitely can't pull off friendly trash-talk when they're in juniors together. (I don't actually know if they would be in juniors together. I'm not sure how old Yuri P has to be to be a Junior instead of a novice, and JJ has to be a senior by the time Yuri P is 13 or 14. He's at the GPF in Sochi.) While this is primarily a fic about Yuri and Viktor misreading each other, I don't want to pretend that they're good at reading other people outside of that.


	3. Viktor Nikiforov

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri always knew Viktor Nikiforov was flighty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, posting this seemed like more fun than adulting. So here you go. The final chapter will go up tomorrow. 
> 
> And if anyone is wondering about Yuuri's nationals, which should also be happening on Viktor's birthday, so am I. But I'm hand-waving it, because Viktor hasn't been to the rink since he got injured (Yuri P says he's sulking and Yuuri says he's depressed. Guess who is right?) and Yakov can't fill in for Viktor in Japan while he's coaching his own skaters in Russia. Maybe Yuuri's nationals were a little bit early this year. He went by himself, Minako stood in for Viktor against her better judgement, and he got back to Russia just in time to watch Yuri's short program at home with Viktor the day before this starts. There. Handwave completed.

Yuri always knew Viktor Nikiforov was flighty. 

He flitted and twittered and refused to come out and say what he meant and it drove Yuri wild. If he had looked Yuri in the eye and said what he thought, even once, instead of always hiding himself away and giving Yuri his lesser truths Yuri would have been happy. It was infuriating to bare his own ambition only to be met coolly by an impenetrable smile and a vague threat. Yuri didn’t mind the threat. He minded that it was never what Viktor actually meant to say. It was worse when Viktor started the encounter. Viktor would offer to teach Yuri a move and leave when he got bored, before Yuri had finally won the battle with gravity. 

It got worse as Yuri got older. Yakov called Viktor impulsive and Viktor began changing to suit the adjective (or so the change looked to Yuri’s eyes). Sometimes he would leave midday and not return, filling his Instagram with pictures of Makkachin down by the Neva instead. Other days he would drill his spins when Yakov wanted him to work on his edges, or do perfect quad flips one after the other after another until he had to bend over with one hand on the sideboard and pant. He would stay long after everyone left, or he wouldn’t bother to show up at all. 

 

When Yuri yelled at his future competitor and friend in an empty bathroom (not that he would have admitted then that Yuuri would ever be worth either name) and then watched the man drink himself into a dancing fool over the course of an evening, he wasn’t surprised that Viktor was charmed. The way the other man danced was amazing (if he had moved like that on the ice the day before, maybe he would have beaten the Canadian asshole) and clearly Viktor saw something in the obnoxious staring and touching… The surprise was that the obsession lasted longer than the dance.

 

When Viktor disappeared off to Japan instead of choreographing a program for Yuri’s debut it hurt worse (this was important for Yuri’s career and besides that Viktor had never actually fled the country to escape him before) but it was also the latest in a long line of Viktor-related incidents. Previous betrayals had ranged from offers to get ice cream to agreeing to show Yuri his fancy pet store (what was good enough for Makkachin might be almost good enough for Potya) but had in common always the excuses Viktor had littered through their history. He wanted to get this bit of choreography he was rewriting or he had to hurry home to let Makkachin out. The good pirozhki place was too far away today. 

 

When Yuri booked his ticket. When he marched grimly onto that plane planning to drag that routine out of Viktor any way he could. Yuri knew that Viktor had been obsessed with the other Yuuri for months. He knew that he probably couldn’t avert any disaster brewing (would never have admitted – not on purpose, not for anything – that he was worried for either his pining elder rinkmate who had fallen for a man who didn’t call for months or this skater who shared his name and could do so much better (couldn’t admit even to himself that he didn’t know which disaster he was more concerned with preventing) if only Viktor didn’t pick him up and then drop him again when he got bored, ruining what little self-confidence the man had) but he could at least monitor the damage and have some idea of how badly either of them were going to be wrecked by this. And maybe he would even finally win a forgotten promise from Viktor.

Yuri loved Viktor, even if he didn’t like him.

 

Viktor knew his intensity was too much, and he worried, haphazardly, when he thought of it, about how hard it would hit Yuri when he discovered the same. The other boy seemed to want nothing so much as to wrestle the world into submission all at once.

Viktor had learned early how to deflect, to laugh and smile and allow his largesse in ignoring your faux pas to do the work of threatening people for him on the rare occasion that was what he needed. His silvery hair had othered him just enough to stick out. It made him intimidating, even when he had grown his hair out long and flowing. Viktor wanted to win, yes, but he wanted to be known, to be seen and liked. His final growth spurt had finally laid that dream to rest. If they didn’t see him at sixteen, long haired and petite, he might as well do as Yakov had been nagging him for years and cut his hair to match his new height. He played it off as a surprise. (People liked that better.) He told himself that it was a matter of patience. Biding his time for some nebulous rescue he wasn’t sure he believed in. He chopped himself into easy bites and let the world consume him. 

 

Yuri’s impatience grated on Viktor. His mask slipped more often in the boy’s presence as he grasped at Viktor’s knowledge and his time. He was good at letting Yuri’s demands slide off. Viktor had made a career out of being likeable, but something about Yuri’s demands went too far, asked him to bare that part of himself he had safely buried for years. Viktor found himself coldly furious at the boy more than once, but each time he was madder at himself. Yuri was thirteen years younger than he was. There was no reason why he should let the brat crawl under his hard-won mask and crack it again. 

 

He knew that his husband was fond of Yurio. He assumed at first that Yuuri liked him for the same reasons Viktor had first valued Chris, as a competitor who could almost keep up. The one who would overtake him if he stagnated somehow. He was grateful to Yurio for doing a better job with that position than Chris had, for actually keeping up with his Yuuri. (He tried to ignore the niggling voice in the back of his head that wanted to try his own powers against the pair, to see if he could hold his medals against some real competition.) 

 

It wasn’t until his own wedding that he considered Yurio might have some closer bond with his husband. (It wasn’t the first time he had wondered about Yurio’s impression of him, even if it was the first direct information he’d had about it in years. Viktor knew that the first rule of minimizing damage was to monitor his image. He paid attention more than Yurio ever gave him credit for.) 

Yurio had somehow managed to corner Viktor without his best man in attendance. “Look.” 

He leaned back against the door of the small room Viktor had been assigned before the ceremony. Viktor sat in his chair, half-turned to look at him, and wondered what Yurio thought he was doing now. 

Yurio crossed his arms. “You’d better understand before you go out there that this is for real. You can’t play around and leave Katsudon in six months or a year when you get bored. Chulanont may come for you on Instagram, but I live in your city and I will fuck you up.” Yurio’s mouth thinned. “Katsudon likes you for some reason. Don’t mess it up.” Yurio hesitated for another moment, looked like he was going through a mental checklist (Viktor, nonplussed, found himself speculating about what else might be on it; maybe he had better go looking for Chris if his best man didn’t reappear soon) and stepped forward, leaning into Viktor’s space. “If you play your little forgetful games with him, I can guarantee you will regret it.” He straightened and disappeared, letting the door bang shut behind him. Viktor blinked after him and greeted Chris’s re-entrance with a blinding smile that he hoped would hide the unexpected hurt. How many people had seen that warped version of his mask?

 

Viktor Nikiforov was running scared.


	4. Growing pains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If I help you cook, can you keep the,” Yuri waved a hand, “glee you ooze off me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is is, y'all!
> 
> Edited 4/28 for some minor grammar/continuity/etc. 
> 
> Also I've been inspired by the outtake at the end and I'm now working on a tangentially related fic. I may not get it up for a month or so if I am serious about my work, but lucky for anyone interested in reading it, I'm always terrible at impulse control, so it should be up well before that.

Viktor wore a stiff smile as he eased past the reporters on his crutches, hair and teeth working to blind them to the pain when they got too close and jolted his foot. He was easing past yet another reporter with a friendly joke about if this was how he had planned to attend nationals, Yuuri working ahead to open up a path, when suddenly the press eased back. Viktor looked up to find Yurio, in his costume with his hair half-done, looking displeased. 

“Idiot. Oy, assholes, stop crowding him. You’re knocking his cast.” He met Viktor’s gaze. “Someone told me you fools had shown up after all. I thought even you wouldn’t be that crazy, but then I remembered who I was talking about.” He folded his arms and watched the press as Viktor limped up the aisle that had been created on his crutches, hissing twice when a reporter moved to stick a microphone in his way.

Viktor waited until they were inside and away from the reporters to respond. “You actually beat up a reporter, didn’t you?”

Yurio snorted. “I don’t need to waste my time beating up reporters if they all believe I would. What possessed you to come join us in this madhouse?”

He ducked through a doorway and held the door for Viktor and Yuuri, who followed to find Lilia waiting. Yurio sat in a chair without being told and allowed Lilia to restart the left side of his head. 

Viktor found himself without words. Somehow he hadn’t expected Yurio to be so normal. 

Yuuri filled the gap. “We thought we’d come cheer you on, Yura.”

Yurio gave him an impressive side-eye, earning a yank on his hair from Lilia, who always knew. “If you’re dragging him down to the rink Katsudon…”

Viktor was touched. “Yurio, I didn’t know you cared!” he exclaimed, and watched Yurio’s face shut off. Viktor bit his lip and chanced a glimpse of Lilia’s face from behind his bangs. She clearly had expected nothing more. It stung. “Y- Yuri.” Viktor hesitated, trying to find the vocabulary for a new type of interaction with this most infuriating of rinkmates. 

Yurio looked unimpressed.

“Yuri, I was the one who wanted to come support you.” He paused, mulling over his words. “I wanted to thank you for the gift. It was.” Viktor’s words stuck. He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to admit out loud how precious that gift was to him, even assuming that he someday found the words, but luckily Yurio was also having none of that.

He flipped a hand. “It was just some old thing I had lying around. You might want to apologize to Chris. I had to blackmail him a little for the drag photos.” The smirk on his face mirrored the one on Lilia’s uncannily. He made eye contact with Viktor aggressively. “It wasn’t supposed to be about a trade where you rub some magic living legend cologne on me. I can win Nationals without your help.”

Viktor blinked. “Of course you can. You did it last year in spite of me.” He let the fact that Yuri’s last growth spurt might be enough of a handicap to give him silver aside. “I’d be a bigger fool than you think I am if I thought you needed me to win.” 

Yuuri jumped in, apologetic. “We don’t have to stay Yurio. We just thought the view would be better here than on the TV at home.”

Yurio sniffed, distainful, and ignored Lilia’s warning tug. “Obviously. The camera angles always misrepresent things.” Softer, so Viktor could barely hear, he added, “I didn’t think you were watching.”

Viktor tipped his head to swing his hair across his face again. “Of course we were, idiot.”

Yurio snorted and looked like he regretted allowing Lilia to tie his hair out of his face. 

Yuuri stepped in again. (Viktor knew that Yurio took gentleness better from Yuuri than Viktor, but the pang was unexpected, that Yurio was so surprised) “You’re our friend, Yura. Of course we watched you.”

Yurio shrugged and stood. “Yeah, yeah. Of course.” He raised a hand to check the braids and turned to Lilia. “Thank you.” 

Viktor wasn’t sure when Yurio had learned to say that without sounding like it was breaking his teeth. 

Viktor shifted on his crutches. “I’m going to go find a seat, but. Good luck Yur- Yuri. Not that you’ll need it.”

Yuri gave him a brisk nod and looked past him to his husband. “You’ll look after him Katsudon? I have to get out to the ice.”

Viktor snorted. “Go warm up, Yurio. Yuuri and I can find our seats.”

 

Yuri and Yuuri both seemed to think that would be the end of it. Viktor, however, couldn’t shake the naked look of relief on Yurio’s face when he had walked into the rink for practice and found Viktor propped on the rail, calling out adjustments to his husband again, although all he said was “About time I got Yakov back.” 

 

Viktor knew that if he asked Yuuri, his husband would have sixteen ideas for ways they could help Yurio out, at least two of which wouldn’t even be taken the wrong way. He thought that maybe Yuuri had said something to make Yurio think about how to help Viktor, but he was certain that Yuuri hadn’t come up with the idea. 

 

(He knew how indebted he was to Yurio for knowing that Viktor wouldn’t have been motivated by the methods Yurio was most comfortable with. Spite and anger did nothing when Viktor was depressed and nagging was only enough to keep him eating food and drinking water.)

 

Viktor took to flipping through the photo album as he slowly filled it with pictures. Obedient to Yurio’s command in the note, Viktor had decided not to add more photos from things that had already happened, but to add photos of the good things that happened in his life post-retirement. He had a photo Yuuri took of him and Makkachin at the dog park, Viktor leaning back on the park bench, one hand up to shield his eyes as he gazed lazily after the other dogs, Makkachin sitting at his side. There was a selfie with the two Yu(u)ri’s and ice cream in the snow, a picture of Viktor rinkside at Four Continents, hugging Yuuri over the barrier. 

 

Viktor thought he could credit the photo album with helping him to consider what he really valued in his life, and he didn’t think that getting Yurio a leopard print motorcycle, much as the punk might enjoy such a gift, would compare. Instead, he concentrated on his rinkmate. He watched what Yurio did, what he posted about on Instagram and Twitter, which moves he struggled with and what he ate.

 

Viktor wasn’t sure he could pinpoint the change that told him Yurio was feeling sad. He did as he was told all day, skated his programs with the same single-minded focus, ate his dietician-approved lunch without making any more or less fuss. But his spins, though beautiful, were unhinged and wild. His jumps looked like they had fallen off the other side between timid and reckless. There was uninhibited and then there was looking for an accident, and Viktor planted himself in front of Yurio when the latter stepped off the ice. 

“Y-Yuri.” He earned a sharp look for the omission of that final ‘o.’ “Come pick up Makkachin with me? Yuuri’s having a rough day and I’m no good at katsudon pirozhki.” He let his gaze flit up to check Yurio’s expression. “You can stay and eat with us or you can take some to go if you’ve had it with me today.”

Yurio sneered and Viktor relaxed. There was something comforting about Yurio offering him a normal reaction, even when that reaction was distain. “I’m really not in the mood for your crap today, Viktor. If I help you cook, can you keep the,” he waved a hand, “glee you ooze off me?”

Viktor snorted and forced himself not to hug Yurio just to watch the boy squirm. “I can try.”

 

Halfway through the cooking, Yurio squinted at Viktor. “You’re being weird.”

“I’m always weird.”

“Weirder than normal.” Yurio frowned. 

Viktor shrugged. “You said you were having a bad day. If you want to talk…”

“A little normalcy might help.”

“You told me to tone it down.” 

Yurio shrugged and turned back to the fryer. “And I appreciate that.”

Viktor considered this from where he had been placed, on a stool out of the way. 

Yurio had found the right way to help Viktor, even if it took stepping out of his comfort zone. Viktor had thought that food might help, and he couldn’t cook… He had never paid close attention to the forms of needling that Yurio appreciated, more interested in cataloguing the ways he could get under Yurio’s skin.

“How’s Potya?”

“Good.”

“I found an old slicker brush around somewhere the other day, if you ever get tired of developing hairballs just by association.” 

Yurio snorted. “Your mutt could use a slicker brush herself. She’s like, living proof that your baldness isn’t a family trait.”

“Yuri!” Viktor clutched at his heart and caught a glimpse of Yurio’s satisfied smile. 

“Oh, don’t pretend to be insulted.” Yuri raised floury hands. “Your receding hairline is just a fact.”

Viktor smiled. “Speaking of hair, I was thinking about yours.”

Yurio’s face turned sour.

“What?”

Yurio lifted a shoulder. “It’s no big deal.” 

Viktor waited. 

"It isn't!" 

"OK." 

Yuri worked in angry silence for a moment, then spat, “I told Otabek I was thinking about dyeing my hair for the exhibition at Worlds. Nothing permanent, just kool-aid or something to match my costume.”

Viktor blinked. “That sounds like it would be a fun surprise Yurio. Let me know if you want help with it at all. The dyeing or the sneaking it into the rink without anyone seeing until you’re on the ice.”

Yurio’s back was to him now, and stiff, while he pretended to check the pork that definitely wasn’t done frying yet. His voice was equally stiff when he spoke. 

“Otabek told me that green hair wasn’t pretty. That I should dye my hair normal hair colors if I had to dye it. To think of my image and what Lilia would say.” He jerked a shoulder in what was clearly supposed to be an indifferent shrug. “I don’t think Lilia would even care.”

“Otabek is a good friend, but right now he’s an idiot. Yurio, it’s not like you’re getting a green tattoo across your face.”

“That would show him.” Yurio’s shoulders had loosened the slightest bit.

“I’m not recommending it. But it’s your body, and it’s definitely your hair, and,” he hadn’t even told his husband this, “I cried for months after I let Yakov talk me into cutting my hair. Don’t let other people think that they know better about your body than you do.”

Yurio had returned to the dough he was cutting out. “I… Viktor,” he pressed his lips together and clearly changed his mind about what he was going to say. “Thanks.” 

 

Yuuri was shocked when he walked in moments later, pirozhki half-made of the counter and Yura hugging Viktor like they were friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with how this came out. I tried to emphasize that this is Viktor's decision that makes a difference, but I'm a little bit worried that I'm still not getting him right/that Yuri ends up being the bigger man. (They're both petty as fuck. If it's not a balanced give and take I've got both of them wrong...)
> 
> And as for Otabek, I get the idea that he feels like he's more responsible than Yuri. (That whole thing about not taking him to the club in the WttM manga for one.) My best friend has made similar comments to me when I talk about dyeing my hair/shaving my head (He actually tried to tell me that I should get a tattoo instead of dyeing my hair because I could cover up a tattoo.) People just have different ideas about acceptable forms of rebellion. I'm not trying to make Otabek into a bad guy. I really love that they gave Yuri a friend.
> 
> Also, bonus: Yuri “blackmailing” Chris.
> 
> Yuri and Chris had established a mutual tolerance years ago based on their cats. As long as Chris didn’t hit on Yuri and Yuri didn’t slut-shame Chris, they got along swimmingly.
> 
> It wasn’t that Yuri didn’t like Chris fine. He just wasn’t good at asking for favors, particularly if it meant he might have to admit to doing something nice for someone.
> 
> He made an actual phone call for this. 
> 
> “Hey. I need pictures of you and Viktor.”
> 
> “Oh?” Calling was a mistake. Chris was already purring at him.
> 
> “Fuck off. For Viktor. Pictures where he isn’t skating.” Yuri scowled at the phone and added reluctantly, “Yuuri says he’s pretty depressed or something.” And defensively, “It’s a birthday present!”
> 
> Chris changed the subject and sent the pictures. (Yuri was still waiting for Chris to blackmail him.)


End file.
